Adding 50 new members in 2017, IMS membership grew to 3,200 leaders representing 442 organizations. IMS members are leading suppliers, universities, school districts, and states worldwide who are actively collaborating and investing together to create the world’s largest and most dynamic ecosystem of forward-looking edtech products based on open standards. Over the last 12 years, membership has climbed at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.9%. Revenue climbed over 4.7 million dollars; increasing at a CAGR of 13.1% over this same 12-year period.

The IMS conformance certification program (imscert.org) is a key proof point in demonstrating the growth of the IMS ecosystem. The total number of certifications surpassed 1,400 certifications since its inception in 2009 with 379 certifications in 2017 alone, an 80% increase from the prior year.

Under the guidance of IMS institutional leadership boards, IMS members are collaborating on strategies to build the foundation for advancing their digital learning environment to support a next generation capable ecosystem. The K-12 Digital Learning Revolution Program empowers school districts of all sizes and needs to evolve to a seamless digital ecosystem for a better return on learning from their investments in digital curriculum and educational technology. The HED Transformative Ecosystem Program helps institutions evolve their learning ecosystem to feature the latest innovations in learning environments, adaptive learning tools, learning analytics, and digital micro-credentials.

The need to innovate in the delivery of education in both formal and informal settings has never been higher and will continue to grow,” said Dr. Rob Abel, chief executive officer, IMS Global Learning Consortium. “We are excited that the IMS community is playing a major leadership role in five key areas—adaptive digital curriculum, next generation learning environments, integrated assessment, digital micro-credentials and learning analytics—and will continue to move forward in these areas as we work to advance the open educational technology ecosystem through the efforts of our members.”

A major milestone in 2017 was the launch of LTI Advantage. LTI Advantage elevates the Learning Tools Interoperability® (LTI®) standard, which is currently implemented in over 70 learning platforms and hundreds of learning apps and tools, enabling unparalleled flexibility and choice among educational software to support evolving teaching and learning approaches. LTI Advantage also includes the most up-to-date and advanced security framework—raising the bar in the protection of student privacy and data security.

Adoption of the IMS OneRoster® standard continues its strong pace as K-12 districts are requiring IMS certification as an integral part of their Digital on Day One strategy. In 2017, certified adoptions of OneRoster increased more than 50% to 38 certified student information systems, learning management systems, and digital curriculum products achieving plug-and-play digital enrollment and grade reporting.

The IMS digital credentials portfolio expanded with the first release of the Competencies and Academic Standards Exchange® (CASE®) standard and a major upgrade to Open Badges. CASE provides curriculum and instructional designers the tools to align their curriculum with learning standards and frameworks in both K-12 and HED. CASE also provides assurance to end users that their learning standards will not be misinterpreted when translated to machine-readable format. The Open Badges 2.0 standard (OBv2) provides a robust digital currency for achievements providing value to earners, educational institutions, and employers. New capabilities of OBv2 include digital endorsement by recognized authorities, compatibility with assistive technologies, multilingual badges and support for multiple badge versions, and expanded identity profiles to support alternative ways to identify an individual or organization. Nine of the top badging platforms in the world are IMS certified for OBv2 guaranteeing that learners are able to display their badges on and share their badges from any IMS certified platform.

Work was completed on the next version of the IMS Caliper Analytics® standard, the first open standard created by and for the educational community to provide semantically meaningful clickstream data from learner activities across learning resources, tools, and platforms. Caliper has been implemented and certified by 25 major LMS and learning tool suppliers to generate and deliver learning event data. Leading institutions are using Caliper data to analyze and measure the effectiveness of learning activities to support student success.

Question and Test Interoperability® (QTI®) continues to revolutionize digital assessment as institutions, state departments of education, and government ministries of learning across the globe transition to offer e-assessment exclusively. The next iteration of the QTI standard will be aligned to the latest web and accessibility standards, providing end-to-end accessible assessment solutions from authoring to delivery.

IMS Global Learning Consortium is a nonprofit organization that advances technology to affordably scale and improve educational participation and attainment. IMS Global members are leading suppliers, institutions, and government organizations that are enabling the future of education by collaborating on interoperability and adoption initiatives. IMS Global sponsors the Learning Impact Leadership Institute, a global program focused on recognizing the impact of innovative technology on educational access, affordability, and quality while developing the people and ideas to help shape the future of educational technology.